Man drowns in floodwaters in Marshall County; 13,000 without power in Memphis

Flooding due to heavy rain submerges the Wolf River Greenway under Walnut Grove.

April 27, 2011 - Crystal Goedereis and Chad Banks row through the Riverbend Apartments Wednesday afternoon as flood waters swamped the complex. West Memphis was declared a disaster area by the state as rains continued to pound the midsouth causing low lying areas to flood after a night of damaging winds toppled trees and damaged businesses. (Jim Weber/The Commercial Appeal)

Flooding caused by severe storms that swept through Memphis and surrounding counties today claimed the life of a man in Marshall County, Miss., officials said.

Marshall County Sheriff Kenny Dickerson said Artwell Craft, 66, drowned Wednesday in floodwaters when he was swept out of his vehicle on his way to pick up an elderly patient for a doctor's appointment.

Dickerson said Craft's body was found shortly after 4 p.m. off of Miss. 7, north of Holly Springs in the county.

Dickerson said emergency crews began searching for the Craft Wednesday morning after his family reported he was missing.

Authorities found his empty Lincoln Town Car on South Slayden Road and Miss. 7. They later found his body in floodwaters about a quarter of a mile from where his car was located.

Meanwhile, National Weather Service meteorologists warned that although the rain has mostly stopped, some bodies of water could still flood.

In Memphis, about 13,000 Memphis Light, Gas and Water customers remain without power. The number affected by the outages has increased since this morning, officials said, as crews working to make repairs faced new problems created by high winds.

"We've seen some damage in Mississippi around Oxford and areas just south of Tupelo, but for the most part, Shelby County has been very lucky," said Andy Sniezak, meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

In Arkansas, West Memphis Police chief Bob Paudert confirmed that West Memphis had been declared a disaster area today. He learned through a call from the mayor of the city.

The declaration means that the State of Arkansas will reimburse the city for overtime for police and other workers, and for outside crews called in to help get citizens' power restored.

"It was one of the strongest winds I have ever been in," Paudert said. "It was amazing no one was hurt."

DeSoto County emergency officials managed to rescue two men from a capsized boat on Miss. 305, near the Coldwater River.

"We were able to locate both people. They were rescued and brought back to the bank. Everybody's good," said Bobby Storey with the county emergency management services agency.

Between 4 and 5 inches of rain have fallen in parts of Shelby County in the past 18 hours.

At the Bartlett Animal Shelter, officials began asking for help finding temporary foster homes for about 80 dogs and cats on Tuesday. By this afternoon, they had about 20 dogs left, many of them large ones.

Kim Scheu, the shelter manager, said with the rising waters of the Loosahatchie, they would like to find as many temporary homes for the animals as possible before closing for the weekend.

Scheu said the floodwaters have never reached the building, but the nearby dog park was impacted by high waters last May.

She expects the waters to recede enough next week to bring the animals back. But she said, in these situations, there are hopes that those who take the animals will adopt them.

At the height of the storms on Tuesday, about 45,000 homes were affected by MLGW outages, including hard-hit areas in Frayser, Midtown and Raleigh. According to an MLGW update at 6:30 a.m., 120 crews were in the field and 19 more had been requested from other states. Of those 20, 14 were en route from Ohio and Illinois.

Officials in West Memphis woke to widespread, residential storm damage and large pockets of standing water growing near the riverbanks, while police in Bartlett received few storm-related calls.

The flooding in West Memphis is being caused entirely by rain, according to Crittenden County EMA director Ronald Rogers. The levees, he stressed, have not be compromised. The worst flooding is in West Memphis and parts of Marion near the high school. In West Memphis the southeast part of town has been hit hardest. Between 10 and 20 people have been moved to shelters because of flooding in their homes, he said.

Tennessee Highway Patrol officers declared the interstates fit to travel, with only minor flooding reports coming in from parts of Haywood and Fayette Counties.

Germantown officials reported no flash flooding problems overnight, but like most around the area, they were preparing for the effects of another system gathering southwest of Shelby County just after sunrise.

"We're still waiting for this next one that's coming right over the hill," Bo Mills, the suburb's public services director, said.

Along Germantown Parkway in Cordova, Memphis police officers were directing traffic on a section of the major thoroughfare because several traffic signals were out.

The major problems were at Trinity and Fisher Steel, and businesses in the corridor were without power.

The Germantown Greenway has been closed and likely will remain that way for at least a week or more.

So far, Wolf said there have not been any reports of fires or lightning strikes and no street flooding in Germantown.

Collierville officials said the main problem they were dealing with this morning was a power outage north of the Wolf River. There were a couple of downed utility poles that led to the outage affecting the Spring Creek Ranch area near the junction of Collierville-Arlington and Raleigh-LaGrange.

Bill Kilp, Collierville public services director, said the outage had shut down two of the town's sewer pumping stations but emergency generators were being sent there to get the operations back on line.

Like others, Kilp was waiting to see the impact of the line of storms expected through Shelby County later in the morning.

"The creeks are high and the grounds are saturated," he said. "If we have much wind, we could have some trees topple."

Shelby County Fire Department crews this morning reported that the Loosahatchie River has overflowed its banks, but so far no homes have been inundated.

Spokesman Brent Perkins said the Loosahatchie is just below the bridge at Raleigh-Millington Road and is out of its banks as far east as Brunswick Road. The department is monitoring vulnerable areas such as Waverly Farms development and Northaven.

Two housing units on the Naval Support Activity Mid-South base -- affecting 122 families -- have been evacuated as a precaution.

The base's Facebook page said that child and youth services were being moved to the north side of the base, but transportation to local schools would work under its regular schedule.

Public affairs officer David Crenshaw said in a release that base will operate under an "essential personnel only" status until at least noon, and there is an ordered evacuation of Enterprise and Capehart Housing, primarily occupied by enlisted personnel and their families.

Enterprise and Capehart are situated in the low, southeast corner of the installation and were the first houses to flood in May of 2010. Residents were directed to the base's emergency family assistance center at the Pat Thompson Center.

"This precaution is necessary because of the rate at which Big Creek and the surrounding streams are rising," the web site stated. "You are not in imminent danger; this action is meant to preclude an emergency situation."

Crews are still working to repair lines at Highway 51 at Millington Rd, Raleigh-Lagrange at Collierville Arlington Rd and Center College at Kerrville Rosemark.

There was a traffic fatality in Lafayette County near Oxford, Miss., when an 18-wheeler crashed on Highway 30, killing the driver.

Sheriff Buddy East, of Lafayette County, Miss., said he's been on duty without much rest since early yesterday evening.

Trees were uprooted and thrown through homes when the storms came through around 9 a.m. today, East said. Oxford locals remain wary of down power lines, mild flooding and light damage to area businesses.

"The worst of it was the roofs that blew off," East said, "but so far I guess we've been pretty lucky."